Nobel Prize Winners

Kyoto University, the home of many Nobel Prize winners

Kansai is a storehouse of history and culture, and the traditional industries and culture have created new industries and technology. In addition, the free and open atmosphere, and the creativity and originality, as well as the flexibility, of the open-hearted people in the region are accompanied by a spirit of inquiry in regard to the unknown.
This progressive temperament can also be seen in the number of Nobel Laureates from the Kansai region. Up to the present, 18 Japanese have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and of these Nobel Laureates, 11 are from the Kansai region, where they attended university: Yukawa, Hideki (1949, Physics), Tomonaga, Shinichiro (1965, Physics), Kawabata, Yasunari (1968, Literature), Esaki, Reona (1973, Physics), Fukui, Kenichi (1981, Chemistry), Tonegawa, Susumu (1987, Physiology or Medicine), Noyori, Ryoji (2001, Chemistry), Nambu, Yoichiro (2008, Physics), Masukawa, Toshihide (2008, Physics), Kobayashi, Makoto (2008, Physics), and Shimomura, Osamu (2008, Chemistry).